Operation Snow White – lots of interesting facts

When you think about it, the US started with a bunch of anti-tax, culty nut jobs that were running away from a tyrannical monarchy and they eventually employed destructive behaviors such as martial law and genocide to get their manifest destiny rolling.

This set-up makes it perfect for any group of anti-tax, culty nut jobs to employ destructive behaviors in the US to get their own Pinky and the Brain destinies rolling.

It’s another red-letter day here in the Underground Bunker, thanks to the tireless work of researcher R.M. Seibert. After years of persistence, she coaxed another eye-opening release out of the US government about Scientology, in this case a collection of documents from the US Justice Department that have never been made public before.

They capture a moment in 1983 when several US government agencies were considering a legal settlement with Scientology over a lawsuit that had gone on for six years. Some agencies were in favor of the proposed settlement, others were bitterly opposed to it. One memo in particular, written by the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Stanley S. Harris, stands out as a stunning indictment of Scientology after years of litigation over its dirty tricks against the government. We knew you’d want to see it, and we have Harris’s memo in full below. We’ve also taken out some choice excerpts from it that should be framed and put on government office walls for future reference.

But before we get into those details, we shared the release with historian Chris Owen, who was good enough to provide this background on these documents to help us all understand their significance. We’ll also point out that much of this background is spelled out in our book about these years, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely. Take it away, Chris:

This is a very interesting document release from the agencies targeted by one of Scientology’s most infamous campaigns – the Snow White Program, often dubbed “Operation Snow White.”

On April 28, 1973, L. Ron Hubbard wrote Guardian Order 732, the Snow White Program, under which scores of government agencies in the US and abroad were targeted for espionage, infiltration, and litigation. Snow White was subdivided into a series of country-focused projects named after characters from the 1937 Disney film.

Snow White’s goals were to purge government files around the world of “false reports” (i.e. unflattering information) on Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, to enable Scientology to operate freely in countries where it faced bans or legal pressures, and to build evidence to sue opponents for “suppressing” Scientology. Ludicrously, this even included suing critics for genocide.

The goals of Project HUNTER, the portion of Snow White targeting the US government, were only slightly less modest. Scientology sought to obtain records from government agencies and compel the government to “correct” its files, inform any recipients of that its previous reports had been false, and provide compensation for “incredible” damages caused by the files. It stole vast quantities of documents from the government to assist its campaign of litigation under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), with the aim of proving the existence of a government conspiracy against Scientology.

In February 1977, Scientology filed a $750 million lawsuit against the FBI, CIA, NSA, Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of the Treasury, Department of the Army, US Postal Service and Interpol, alleging that they had engaged in a conspiracy against Scientology since 1955. Drawing on the documents that it had acquired through the FOIA and its campaign of theft, the church claimed that Scientology had been subjected to infiltration, illegal surveillance, and disinformation, and its members had been harassed, blackmailed, and spied upon. Only six months later, the FBI raided Scientology’s Guardian’s Office (GO) and found evidence that the GO’s spies had done to the government all of the things that it claimed the government had done to Scientology. (The Snow White Program was mandated by Hubbard and so survived the demise of the GO, lasting at least into the early 1990s.)

It appears from these new documents obtained by R.M. Seibert that the government made a serious effort to settle the $750 million lawsuit in 1983. The agencies targeted by the lawsuit had suffered years of expensive and futile litigation, and with no apparent end in sight most of them were evidently willing to throw in the towel and give Scientology at least some of what it wanted.

The DOJ’s Civil and Criminal Divisions took opposing views, with the Civil Division recommending settlement and the Criminal Division and FBI – which had spent four and a half years prosecuting the GO leadership – opposed. Ironically, the Civil Division had been one of the arms of the DOJ that had been raided by the GO’s spies. The GO had claimed that its actions had been justified as self-defense against a government conspiracy. As the Criminal Division pointed out, the proposed settlement implicitly conceded Scientology’s conspiracy theory, handing the church an undeserved propaganda victory.

More importantly, the terms of the settlement required the government to set up a mechanism that would effectively allow Scientology to screen and approve or disapprove any new information that the government held about it. The Criminal Division pointed out that not only was this hugely onerous but it would seriously hinder investigations – at the time, Scientology’s tax affairs were under investigation – and facilitate even more litigation.

The settlement seems to have fallen through, as I’ve not found any evidence that it was ever enacted. The lawsuit fell apart in April 1985 when Hubbard was ordered to appear for a deposition but failed to show up. Scientology attorneys argued that they could not produce Hubbard for depositions and had no way of contacting him.

In fact, Hubbard was living in hiding on a ranch in Creston, California and was in no shape for a deposition. As Jesse Prince’s recent book has revealed, Scientology’s leadership was well aware that Hubbard was not only in poor physical health, but his mental health had degraded to the point that he would come across as “crazy” to outsiders. Ironically, Scientology’s aim of achieving Project HUNTER’s goals was sunk by the very man who had devised the Snow White Project in the first place.

Thank you for that rundown, Chris. So again, here’s the situation: Although the government had put in prison 11 top Scientology officials for burglarizing, infiltrating, and otherwise spying on the government, the church was suing the government claiming that it was the real victim. Isn’t that classic Scientology?

After years of grinding litigation, the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, US Customs, and other branches were ready to throw in the towel. They had agreed to a settlement that, while somewhat neutral, would certainly give the impression that the government was admitting to treating Scientology badly, and that would put an onerous burden on the government going forward regarding what was kept in files about Scientology.

The Criminal Division was appalled. They had just spent more than four years putting Scientology’s Mary Sue Hubbard and her lieutenants in prison for what the church was now accusing the government of doing. Why would the US throw in the towel when they were happy to go through with a trial and prove that it was Scientology which had acted badly?

In the documents, there are a number of memos going back and forth between departments arguing over the proposed settlement. But one of them stands out. It was written by DC’s chief federal prosecutor, Harris.

Stanley Sutherland Harris turns 91 this month, and we’ve begun to reach out to his family to see if he’d be interested in talking about his memo and his relatively brief stint as the US Attorney for the District of Columbia.